A well-known variation of the game of poker is called Caribbean Stud.
This game is a game of poker between each one of a number players and a dealer. During a turn of the game, each player is required to make an initial wager called an ante. After wagering the ante, each player and the dealer receive five cards dealt from a single deck of 52 playing cards. The playing cards are dealt to each player face down, while the dealer receives one card face up and the remainder face down. Each player must not, at this stage, disclose the playing cards that have been dealt to him.
Each player is then required to decide, on the basis of the playing cards which have been dealt to him, and the dealer's exposed playing card, whether to continue with his participation in this turn of the game (that is, to “play”) or to terminate his participation in the turn (that is, to “fold”). If a player folds, he loses his ante wager. If a player decides to play, he must make a further wager, known as the main wager, which is equal to twice the amount of the ante wager.
Once the main wager has been made in this manner by all players who have decided to play in the particular turn of the game, the dealer and the players all reveal their hands. In order to participate in the game (that is, “to qualify”) is, the dealer's hand must contain an Ace and a King, or better, in a conventional ranking of poker hands. If the dealer does not qualify, each player who has not folded wins the ante wager at even money and has the main wager is returned to him. If the dealer qualifies, the dealer's hand is compared to that of each player. If a player has a better poker hand than that of the dealer, the player wins the ante bet at even money and wins the main bet according to a predetermined table of odds. If a player has a worse poker hand than that of the dealer, both the ante wager and the main wager are lost.
A problem with this game of Caribbean Stud is that each player may only play one hand at the time. The reason for this is that if more than one hand was to be played, a player could swap playing cards between the two or more hands, thereby gaining an advantage over the dealer. Even in the absence of cards swapping, a player could, potentially, gain an advantage by playing multiple hands and adjusting his playing strategy in accordance with a collective knowledge of the playing cards in the multiple hands that have been dealt to him in a particular turn of the game.